Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

Faint voices and footsteps approached from behind the broken wall.

pat-

Without hesitation, Liang stepped back and hid in a corner area, then turned off his flashlight and prepared to conceal himself.

【…】

It's quiet now.

I could hear sounds just a moment ago, but now it's suddenly quiet and I can't hear anything at all.

Liang wasn't sure if the sound she'd just heard was some kind of hallucination, or if she'd misheard due to her nervousness. But in the darkness, the girl hesitated only briefly before deciding not to turn the flashlight back on. Instead, she remained hidden, and relying on the fragments of spatial memory she'd retained before turning off the flashlight, she carefully moved her body a few more times behind the wall, using it as cover, making almost no sound throughout. Then she remained motionless in place.

tread--

Faint footsteps could be heard.

In an instant, Liang's eyes widened, and she felt as if her heartbeat was about to stop.

The footsteps sounded beside her.

To be more precise, the footsteps came from the spot where she had been standing just a second before.

【…】

It quieted down again.

The footsteps from that moment had vanished, and no other sound rang out.

In the silence, the girl instinctively raised her head and looked towards the spot where she had just stood, where she could no longer see anything.

Naturally, she couldn't see anything in the pitch black.

But she knew that something was standing right there, right in front of her. Perhaps it was just standing still, perhaps it had already silently gone far away, or perhaps it was looking at her right now, staring at her face to face, and she was completely unaware of it.

pat-

The cold light of the flashlight shone on the empty corridor.

Yamada Ryo, his back already soaked with cold sweat, silently stared ahead, then looked back to make sure there was nothing around before slowly continuing forward.

Nothing.

It seems that she was just scaring herself.

I'm not entirely sure if that's true.

She simply thought that if such a monster truly existed, moving silently in the dark and capable of pinpointing its location, the response list should mention it, or at least indicate the presence of some unknown monster. But because the response list contained no corresponding information, the girl hesitated before turning on her flashlight to directly confirm whether there was truly nothing in front of her.

Now it seems the answer is indeed no.

But if that's the case, then what about the footsteps and voices I heard?

Liang forced herself not to think about the problem and just kept moving forward, carefully passing the elevator hall area she had been to before, and heading towards the dilapidated corridor.

Then, she saw a light.

It wasn't the beam of a flashlight from a patrolling security guard, but rather the light emitted by a light fixture or similar device.

The light originated from what should have been the south-facing office area, now converted into a prison. Behind the corridor walls, twisted into the shape of iron bars, emanated from enormous cells. Within these cells, Ryo could see indistinct figures bound by chains, immobilized, sitting at their workstations, relentlessly processing documents and engaging in endless work.

Liang had no way of seeing what those people looked like.

They… or rather, they themselves, have ceased to exist even as humans, leaving only blurry shadows, only afterimages of endlessly repeating the same actions. Like those headless employees during the light-up phase, they are ultimately nothing more than a pile of ashes.

Liang did not attempt to approach these afterimages.

Although she could sense that these shadows themselves were not aggressive, and there wasn't even a tangible entity to touch them, so there was absolutely no need to worry about their danger, she could vaguely sense that something else was hidden around these phantom employees—something extremely dangerous, something that could pose a fatal threat to her, was lurking within these cells.

She found those things very quickly.

[Dansu Company... is like home to its employees... love the company as you love your own home...]

There were indistinct voices.

[Love Dansu Company even more passionately than you love your own home...]

A deep, emotional voice was resounding from those twisted walls.

Those were photographs.

The photo was pasted inside the cage, showing him locked in the same cell as the phantom employees.

Those were photos labeled "Model Employee," and everyone in each photo was smiling, with a happy and joyful expression on their face.

They are speaking, they are shouting at the top of their lungs, and they are doing their best to express their praise for Dansu Company.

They were staring menacingly at the phantoms, those lingering images of employees who should be their kind, as if they would pounce on them like wolves and tear them apart if the latter made even the slightest mistake at work.

So, are these kinds of eerie objects, like the "living photograph," and those headless employee eerie objects actually from the same kind of people? Are they all eerie objects transformed from former employees of the Dansu Company?

Liang suddenly felt a sense of absurdity.

They all died together in the company, becoming lost and helpless ghosts, bound to the dungeon and transformed into monsters. As a result, some employees became headless and legless prisoners, forced to repeat the work they did in life. Others became accomplices of the company, helping to guard these imprisoned and tormented fellow humans, to the point that they themselves became monsters without realizing it.

That's really absurd.

However, it's not entirely incomprehensible that such a thing would happen.

Liang didn't linger here for long and quickly moved on beyond the area.

After passing through an area that looked like a stairwell but had now been completely turned into a jumbled mess of ruins, Ryo arrived at a T-junction.

The traces of the prison became more pronounced here, with more and more cages and iron bars scattered everywhere, and cracks appearing in the ground and walls. A putrid stench permeated the biting cold. Looking up, one could see numerous bloodstained chains hanging from the darkness, swaying gently and making a soft "clattering" sound.

The office not far away looked as if it had melted, presenting an extremely distorted and bizarre shape.

Further away, Liang could already see the swaying beam of a flashlight approaching him.

The security guards are here!

Realizing what had happened, Liang immediately turned off his flashlight and retreated, hiding behind a twisted building structure using the light from the nearby prison area.

step-step-

Clear footsteps were slowly approaching.

An even stronger chill than before was gradually spreading over us.

The other party made no attempt to conceal their movements; the sound of their footsteps alone was enough to pinpoint their approximate location.

Considering the other party's security guard status, there was indeed no need to conceal her actions while patrolling the building; openly displaying herself was the proper course of action. However, out of caution, Ryo still carefully confirmed the other party's location several times and frequently observed her surroundings to prevent anything silent from creeping up on her. She had already experienced enough Jumps Care tonight; she had tasted enough and didn't want to come again.

"call……"

Even though it wasn't the first time he'd faced a strange creature, Liang's breathing still became much heavier, and his heartbeat quickened once again.

Stay calm. As long as you hide in the dark and avoid being exposed to light, you won't be discovered.

Liang said to himself in his heart, while continuing to cautiously increase the distance and observing the location of the light.

tread--

Amidst the clear sound of footsteps, a blurry figure appeared at the end of the road.

Through the cracks in the twisted wall, Ryo could see that the thing was wearing a light blue security guard uniform, thin and wiry, like a skeleton draped in clothing. Like the employee ghost, this thing had no head; the area above its neck was blank. However, it had legs and could move, unlike the employee ghost which was severely restricted. Ryo couldn't help but suspect that perhaps the role of "security guard" itself referred to a group that knew the inside story to some extent—someone who knew what was happening here but still became an accomplice. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the monitoring room to specifically leave a note reminding the rotting corpse ghost in the delivery elevator.

step-step-

The security guard, whose movements were steady and perfectly synchronized, was gradually approaching.

Liang moved cautiously, almost lying on the ground to minimize the noise of her movements.

The security guard's strange creature wasn't moving very fast.

Considering that the floor itself had been significantly distorted and enlarged, Ryo was confident that he should be able to easily bypass it, so he shouldn't need to worry too much about being discovered and chased by it...

Tread-

There were footsteps coming from behind.

The girl paused for a moment, then turned around and saw a flashlight beam appear behind her, where she should have been retreating. Then, a headless security guard emerged from around the corner and shone the flashlight at her.

step-step-

Amidst the crisp sound of footsteps, the headless monster moved slowly forward.

The two security guards arrived at the empty elevator lobby area one after the other, then proceeded in opposite directions and quickly disappeared at the end of the road in silence.

For a moment, just before the two security guards completely left the area, they seemed to sense something, and without warning, they stopped in their tracks, then simultaneously leaned back and shone their flashlights toward the ceiling.

slam-la-

But under the cold white light, the gently swaying iron chain was empty, while the area above it remained shrouded in darkness, impenetrable by the flashlight beam.

【…】

In the silence, the two security guards stood motionless for a long time, as if they had become statues. Then, suddenly, as if they had just woken up, their bodies trembled slightly, and then they quickly returned to normal, turning away as if nothing had happened.

Tread - Tread -

The two headless security guards gradually walked away.

The flashlight beam went from bright to gradually dim, until it was finally swallowed up by the darkness.

And so everything returned to its original state.

Splash—splash—

With a soft clanging of chains, a beam of light suddenly fell from the sky. Then, Yamada Ryo, with a flashlight in his mouth, fell from a height of at least twenty or thirty meters, landing steadily on the ground. He then wiped his blood-stained hands on the ground before taking the flashlight out of his mouth and holding it in his hand.

"...That was close."

Looking in the direction one of the security guards had left, the girl muttered to herself.

There was only one security guard coming from the front at first, but halfway through, another one suddenly appeared from behind, like a twisted horror game deliberately tormenting the player. If it weren't for the fact that Gao Hai's enhancement greatly improved his physical abilities, allowing him to leap up to the ceiling and climb the chains before the two guards met, Liang probably would have been caught and killed on the spot.

It was strange. Logically, I wasn't hit by their flashlights at all, but they seemed to have seen me. Whether it was their perfectly timed flanking me from the front and back, or their sudden turn around and flashlights before leaving, it all felt like they had discovered my presence, like they knew someone was hiding in this place.

Could it be that this strange creature can locate and track living people to some extent even without directly observing them? If it truly possesses such power, escaping from it would be extremely difficult.

The more Liang thought about it, the more pressure she felt. She couldn't help but miss Gao Hai's support again, thinking how wonderful it would be if he were still here, able to talk to her, and guide her.

But she also understood that now was not the time to reminisce about such things; danger was lurking around her like a shadow. If she wasn't careful, the agony of death would descend upon her without her even realizing it. Having already experienced that twice, Yamada Ryo really didn't want to go through it again.

The girl walked cautiously forward, her mind racing with thoughts.

Speaking of which, the response plan didn't specify how these security guards kill people. I wonder if they tear people apart alive, or scrape them off layer by layer with a knife and slice them into thin strips. And if I were killed by them, would the alarms continue after I respawn? No, it's better not to know these things. Surviving as much as possible is the most important thing right now.